Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon is a third-person shooter in the Earth Defense Force franchise, developed by Vicious Cycle Software and published by D3 Publisher on July 5th, 2011 for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. A PC port was developed and subsequently released on both Steam and Games For Windows Live on December 15, 2011. Insect Armageddon is the first game in the series developed by a North American team, instead of the Japanese team, Sandlot, as such, is actually a spin-off of Earth Defense Force 2017- set before the majority of that game's events and chronicling the battle for North America as the EDF mobilizes to protect New Detroit from the giant insect forces of the alien Ravagers. The game moves away from some of the more anime and Japanese specific stylings of the previous games, and instead uses a more "grounded" and typical western visual- though the core gameplay remains the same- with players choosing between one of a variety of EDF classes and using a variety of weapons to destroy waves of insects and robots in either single-player or co-op multiplayer. Gameplay Despite the more realistic graphical style, Insect Armageddon maintains the series' classic arcade style shooting gameplay. Players select one of four armor classes- the Trooper, Jet, Tactical, and Battle Armor, and fight waves of enemy insects in large city environments using a variety of unlockable weapons. Troopers are traditional shooter loadouts, focused on traditional weapons like assault rifle. The Jet Armor allows for limited flight and higher mobility, at the cost of much less defense and the ability to use shotguns. The Tactical Armor can deploy turrets, mines and other traps and is designed to play a support role in a team. Battle Armor is a huge powered armor unit that sacrifices almost all of its mobility to allow the player the most defense and heaviest firepower. Unlike past games, Insect Armageddon's campaign mode is specifically objective based- with players traveling largely linearly through the levels from waypoint to waypoint. After completing the game, a Campaign Remix mode is unlocked allowing the levels to be replayed with challenging changes to the enemy spawn order and group set-ups. A third mode, Survival, allows up to 6 players to join up as Trooper class soldiers and hold out in an endless series of wave-based fights. As players take down larger enemies, like the mechanical Hectors, Carrier Ships, Robotic Mantises and varying bosses, new weapon crates are dropped- which unlock a random weapon from a pool of over 300 different weapons. Each Armor has its own potential load-out, and as each Armor levels up, they gain access to new tiers of damage and quality to the weapons. The Armor's maximum level varies from one difficulty to the next- on normal, each armor can only reach level 5, while hard difficulty unlocks up to 7, and inferno difficulty up to 8. In addition to the upgraded weapon drop system, the vehicle controls have been totally revamped from EDF 2017- designed to allow more natural feeling control of the various tanks and mechs available to the player at various points in the campaign. Vehicles can now be crewed by multiple players- allowing support roles on vehicles such as machine gun turret crews on tanks. Plot Development Reception DLC Category:Games Category:Third-Person Shooter Category:Playstation 3 Releases Category:Xbox 360 Releases Category:PC Releases